


i saw you die (and your love cry)

by villklovn



Series: life (and all its fragile intricacies) [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Ben Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Character Death, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Dissociation, Ghost Klaus, Ghost!Klaus, Grief/Mourning, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, M/M, No Incest, Role Reversal, briefly, if i said i'm sorry it would be a lie, kind of, might be temporary if i continue this in another story, prompt: Wound that would not heal, that's just my brand, this is very sad, very painful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:14:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22163896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/villklovn/pseuds/villklovn
Summary: Ben Hargreeves sits beside his brother as he opens the briefcase and disappears. Ben waits for him at the bus stop, but when Klaus comes back he’s not alone, he’s covered in blood, and only Ben can see him.OrAU in which Dave survives but Klaus doesn’t, and they both travel to 2019, but Klaus is a ghost and Dave doesn’t know. Ben does, but the only person he can talk to is just as dead as him.(For the Bad Things Happen Bingo. Prompt: "Wound That Would Not Heal".)
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Dave/Klaus Hargreeves
Series: life (and all its fragile intricacies) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1590931
Comments: 57
Kudos: 348
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	i saw you die (and your love cry)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TwistedIllusions](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwistedIllusions/gifts).



> Get ready for pain my dudes
> 
> There are chances I will continue this from Dave's POV or something like that. Please tell me if you'd like to see this premise expanded, I have a few ideas but not enough yet
> 
> This is for the "Bad Things Happen Bingo", for the prompt "Wound That Would Not Heal".
> 
> Also, [here](https://unmundoagradable.tumblr.com/post/190127200073/i-saw-you-die-and-your-love-cry) is a shorter version of the story (it was the first draft!), if this is too heavy to read for you guys. It's way shorter but it has most of the feels.
> 
> This is a gift for [TwistedIllusions](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwistedIllusions/profile)'s birthday. Happy birthday, my friend! <3
> 
> Hope y'all enjoy! (and please don't hate me for this too much)

When Klaus was taken from the house, and dragged into the trunk of a car, and then tied to a chair inside the stuffy room of a dingy motel, and then tortured and almost killed by those two masked bastards, and then when he _finally_ managed to escape – all along, Ben was right beside him for every step of the way.

That is, until they both got onto a bus – the first that passed nearby, since they couldn’t afford to be picky, not when they had two crazy assholes possibly chasing them – at which point Klaus decided it would be a good idea to open the unknown briefcase he had taken from the motel, fully convinced it would be stocked full of money. Ben wasn’t the kind of guy who often found himself agreeing with Klaus’s actions or choices, but in this case it was just logical to guess that the briefcase would contain money or some pawnable good (and perhaps a couple of decomposing fingers, but neither of them were squeamish, so it was _fine_ ) that his brother could exchange for some pills. For once, Ben felt disinclined to disapprove of Klaus’s drug-seeking habits, considering the hell he had just been through.

Ben watched absently as Klaus winked at a red-headed woman sitting in front of him, his trembling fingers struggling to turn over the briefcase, his face and chest and the towel around his waist still covered in copious amounts of blood. He mumbled something along the lines of _“money”_ and _“treasure”_ and yes, Ben realized, with more than a little relief, Klaus would be fine, he would soon recover from this, too, as long as no one felt like throwing him in a closet or waterboarding or beating him in the foreseeable future. He would get over what happened, and he would soon get so high he would likely forget everything about it.

It happened so suddenly he almost missed it. One moment Klaus’s fingers were raising up the latches of the briefcase, and the next moment his brother was gone.

Just gone. With a whooshing sound and a blast of wind and a flash of blue, Klaus vanished into thin air. 

Something snapped inside Ben, the connection he had always subconsciously felt between him and his brother’s powers severing abruptly, and for the first time in many years he felt real panic envelop him. What happened? Where was Klaus? Was he okay? Would he come back or was Ben supposed to, what, just spend the rest of eternity alone and unable to interact with anyone else?

Had ghosts needed to breathe, then Ben would probably have passed out. He felt paralyzed and terrified and confused and alone. He didn’t know what to do.

Dazed, he got off the bus at the first stop, right in front of a rusty bench, and ungracefully let himself fall on it. He didn’t often reflect on the implications of being a ghost, or on how ghost physics worked, on how it was possible for him to lean on objects and yet phase through them at will. He stared at his thighs, apparently perfectly solid to him, even if he knew that anyone would be able to sit through him if they wanted. He hoped it wouldn’t happen – it was a wretched feeling, like being unmade and put together again, more unsettling than painful, since he couldn’t really feel pain. His hands tightened on his pants as he forced himself to focus.

He wondered, not for the first time, what would have happened to him after his death if Klaus hadn’t been there, if there hadn’t been that link tethering him to life. Would he have moved on? Gone to paradise? Or hell, or purgatory? Would he have faded into nothing? Or would he just have been doomed to be a ghost like he was now, only without anyone being able to see him or talk to him or – _yes_ – make him laugh? Or pour him coffee he couldn’t drink or serve him food he couldn’t eat? Would he have become like one of those demons in the mausoleum that still haunted Klaus’s nights (and sometimes his days)?

What would happen to him now, he thought, if Klaus didn’t come back?

Since the day he had died at seventeen, Ben had taught himself to predict how Klaus’s powers reacted to him – or rather, how _he_ reacted to _them_. In the times his reckless brother had taken one too many pills and overdosed and gone into cardiac arrest Ben had felt… _less_. Diminished. Reduced to a passive spectator to everything that happened. The fear he should have felt for his brother’s life, the terror he should have felt at the thought that he’d be left alone… They were there, in the background, but it was like being submerged in water, everything around him blurry, sluggish, quieter than it should have been. And then Klaus would jump up after being revived and laugh and everything would come back into sharp focus.

He felt like that again, in that moment, on that bench. That must have been how ghosts normally felt, he realized. In his sudden apathy, the discovery intrigued him less than it normally would have. He didn’t know if it meant Klaus was dead or just too far for his powers to reach him, and anyway there was nothing he could do except wait for his brother to come back, if he ever would. 

Ben was probably lucky that, in this state, time felt less substantial to him, passing much faster than usual, as his mind drifted in haziness.

Almost without him realizing it, the darkness and silence of night gave way to a new day, and the light of dawn drew soft shadows on the pavement, but not under him.

He kept waiting and watching as people left their homes to go to their jobs, living the life he had never gotten the chance to experience. Some distant part of him envied them, longed for that stability and normalcy which almost sounded like happiness. But what little focus remained to him in that moment was spent on staring at the faces that crossed his path, looking for a pair of green eyes and a mop of dark hair.

About half a day after Klaus disappeared, after what felt to Ben like minutes and yet like an eternity, when the sun was high in the sky and the spring breeze gently blew through the trees, a bus stopped right in front of his bench. It wasn’t the first, no. Other buses had stopped before, but no one of importance had come out of them, and thus Ben had dismissed them with barely a glance.

This time, however, something caught his dulled attention.

A man stepped out of the bus, stumbling on his feet, wide eyes fixed in front of him. He was handsome, Ben idly noted, with curly mousy hair and toned arms, and he was dressed like a soldier, but what _really_ caught his attention was the briefcase he held in his hands. Oh, and the _blood_. The guy was covered in blood, his hands slick with red up to the forearms, fingers leaving marks on the black leather of the briefcase. Ben watched him fall on his knees, hitting the pavement with a thud, staring at nothing.

Ben would have studied him more, would have tried to find out if this guy knew anything about his brother – but right then, Klaus himself followed the soldier out, hovering behind him like a shadow. 

The world suddenly felt realer, closer, more vivid, his state of half-existence replaced by the easy feeling of being grounded by something, _someone_. Just as expected, as soon as Klaus was in his vicinity, Ben felt like himself again. Still very much a ghost, still unseen and unheard by everyone but his brother, but at least he could feel things fully and clearly without the hours slipping through his fingers, without fearing that a gust of wind could blow him away.

He stood up, the beginning of a smile on his face, and waited for Klaus to meet his eyes, when he finally really looked at him.

Klaus, too, was dressed like the soldier. Dirty green fatigues hung from his thin frame, his chest bare under them, a long metal chain around his neck. And he, too, was covered in blood. On the corners of his lips and on his right cheek, drawing a stark line from the corner of his mouth to his ear, and on his hands and clothes. His hair was shorter than Ben remembered, and his left arm sported a new tattoo. He kept shadowing the soldier, his lean arms enveloped around himself in the mockery of an embrace.

He needed Klaus to stop looking at the man – not easy, since he seemed to be having a mental breakdown right in the middle of the street – and turn around to look at _him_ , to reassure him that he was fine, he was safe, that he wouldn’t disappear or leave him _ever again_.

“Klaus?” he called, his voice rougher than usual, and the man in question tensed as his head shifted to look at him.

“Ben,” sighed Klaus, a tired smile lightening up his features. “Hey, bro. I missed you.”

Ben ignored his words – Klaus was always too emotional for his own good, and, sure, he had missed Klaus too, _so much_ , but he wouldn’t dare admit it to his brother. “Where were you? Are you okay? _What happened?_ ” he fired in quick succession, and then his eyes shifted to look at the soldier. “And who is he?”

The man was still in the same position he had been since getting off the bus, on his knees, his hands curled around the briefcase and his back tight with tension. He stared unblinkingly and resolutely at the empty air in front of him. He seemed to be in shock and in no hurry to get out of it. Ben would worry about him, but he had other things to worry about. Other _people_.

Klaus shivered, hugging himself tighter, sparing a glance for the soldier and then looking back at him with eyes brimming with tears. His arms fell down, at his sides, giving Ben an unimpeded view of his front. He had another tattoo on his abdomen. “I’m sorry, Ben,” he said, voice cracking as if he had been screaming. “I’m sorry.”

Only then did Ben notice that, while the stranger had blood on his hands and forearms, Klaus had blood on his chest and – _was that a bullet hole?_

“No,” whispered Ben, as if denial could change reality. Deep down, he knew what had happened, but he could still hope he was mistaken. “ _No_ ,” he repeated, half to convince himself and half to convince Klaus, because Klaus was wrong, _Klaus_ couldn’t be – _he couldn’t be_ – 

“ _Ben_ ,” said his brother. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. The bullet hit me in the back, I didn’t even feel it. I just woke up like this,” he explained, eyes wide and bright and so, so sad.

And – _funny_ , Klaus went and got himself killed in those few hours Ben wasn’t there to look out for him, after Ben did his best for years to try and keep his stupid, kind brother safe. After _all_ they had been through, after all the things they had faced _together_ – the one time, _the one time_ Klaus was out of reach was the time Klaus didn’t come back. Or, rather, came back, but not fully.

“No”, Ben said once again, his brain stuck in a loop, having short-circuited and fixed onto that momentous revelation. “ _No_.”

Klaus stepped closer to him, going around the kneeling soldier, who had apparently gathered himself enough to react to his surroundings. The man had started to sob softly, quietly, breath hitching and shoulders shaking, hunched over as he hugged the briefcase to his chest. Klaus regarded him, it seemed, with a grieving sort of sadness – his green eyes wider, brighter than usual on his bloodless face.

“No, no, _no_ . Please come back, _please come back_ ,” the man was saying, voice small and rough from tears. “Please, Klaus, _please–_ ”

Ben envied the man. He wished he could fall apart and sob and let his feelings out, but Sir Reginald Hargreeves had only ever taught his children how to repress their emotions and handle their pain in silence, in hiding, never letting their weakness show. That was true for all of them, with the exception of Klaus, because Klaus had always been comfortable with wearing his heart on his sleeve and with being vulnerable and had always reached out to his siblings when they looked sad, because he could always, _always_ tell when they were (at least before the drugs).

Once again, his brother seemed attuned to Ben’s feelings, more than he was himself, and reached out to him, hesitantly. He still looked haunted, haunting, pale and covered in blood and tears, his chest cracked and hollow, an eternal stream of blood spilling from that hideous wound. 

Ben knew he had looked worse, when he had died. The Horror had torn him apart, bloodied tentacles and guts alike spilling on the metal table Mom had laid him on to try and save him ( _futilely_ , as he later found out, staring at his own body as his family stepped through him). It had taken them both a long time to make sure he looked less like an extra from a snuff movie and more like the man he was supposed to have grown into. He had looked horrifying, harrowing in a way Klaus wasn’t, in that moment, but there was something about his larger-than-life brother looking so hurt and fragile that struck a chord within him and wouldn’t let him go. 

Klaus had managed to live through so many things, always coming out of them with a smile and a laugh and, at worst, a few bruised ribs and a bit of blood on his face. He had never once looked as distraught as he did in that moment, and it rattled Ben to his core (he wondered if Klaus had lost something _more_ , something he didn’t yet know about, something more important to him than his life).

His train of thought was abruptly halted by a hand on his arm. A hand. _Touching him._

All the questions he had and all the things he wanted to scream about faded into the background. He looked at Klaus, and Klaus looked at him, and with what was probably the biggest smile he had ever smiled, Klaus launched himself into his brother’s arms.

Ben didn't really remember what touching felt like, back when he was alive, but he was almost sure it wasn’t supposed to feel like this. He could feel a pressure, a presence, some sort of warmth, but not an actual touch. It was enough, though. It was good. It was still more than he had gotten in _thirteen years_. 

Klaus squeezed him – arms stronger than they were the last time they had hugged, seventeen years old and scared and lonely, but _always_ one at the other’s side – and then stepped back, smiling, blood staining his teeth and drawing lines along his cheek. His eyes still looked wet, and Ben knew he had died crying. He wondered if they would always look like that, now. 

Ben smiled back, but couldn’t let this go on any longer. He could think about this and break down and cry later, when he could get away from Klaus and find a quiet corner to hide in. Now was the time for explanations. “Klaus, what happened? Who’s the guy?” he asked.

His brother’s face dropped, eyes now perpetually full of tears shifting towards the soldier. Ben had been following Klaus for years, and yet he had never seen him look at anyone the way he looked at that man – as if he was the _only_ thing he had ever needed or could ever want. “His name is Dave,” Klaus said, and he smiled, softly, but no one would have missed the clear pain in his expression, pain for what he had found and lost and for what he could never have. “The briefcase? It made me travel back in time. And I met him on the battlefield – and _I know_ this will sound _crazy_ – during the _Vietnam War_ , of all times and places,” he explained, eyes never once leaving the soldier– _Dave_ , as if he would disappear if he just blinked once.

Ben was confused, to say the least. Their lives had always been weird and extraordinary and borderline crazy, the stuff of comic books, quite literally, so he had an easier time believing this than most people would have, in his place, but it was still pretty far-fetched. “ _You_? You fought in a _war_?” he asked, astounded. That part was probably the hardest to grasp, for him. His pacifist, sweet, reckless junkie of a brother who could see the dead had been in an _actual war_? The place where the dead never seemed to run out and always ended up outnumbering the living? 

It only made sense that Klaus _didn’t_ make it, not in that place. But it was impressive he had lasted enough to form a bond with someone, actually. Ben knew his brother, and he was resourceful and smarter than people gave him credit for, but he wouldn’t have handed him a gun for all the gold in the world. And yet Klaus _never_ seemed to run out of ways to surprise him.

Klaus snorted, turning to look at Ben. “Yeah, I know. Who would have thought? Can you imagine Diego’s face? _Luther’s_?” he exclaimed, chuckling, and Ben joined him (trying not to think of how their family didn’t know they had lost another member, _just_ when they had gotten Five back) before they both fell silent. Klaus sobered and sighed, more out of show than need, considering neither of them needed to breathe. “Dave helped me out a lot. He helped me settle, when I got there first, and taught me how to shoot straight, and how to be fast on my feet and hide behind trees,” he recounted, and once again focused on the soldier. “He taught me about constellations and books and music from the 60s and, and–” his voice broke and he fell silent, swallowing compulsively to regain his composure. 

“And now you have left him alone,” Ben finished for him. Unbelievable. Klaus had managed to find someone whom he really cared about and who really cared about him, and he did it _in the middle of a war_ , and then, just like that, he was _dead_. A ghost haunting a man from the past, a man who was now stuck in a different time, alone and scared and mourning. “Klaus, I… I don’t know what to say. You loved him, right?” Ben asked, just to be sure, but he knew his brother well enough to be able to accurately interpret the clues.

Klaus said nothing, for a beat. He opted to walk towards Dave, who was still kneeling on the sidewalk, crying silently instead of sobbing like before, but still just evidently as distraught as he had been the moment he had fallen apart. Klaus looked at him, hands fidgeting, before his focus shifted to his brother. “ _Loved_? Ben, I _still_ love him. I have never loved anyone as much as I love him, not even myself. And this is all so recent. Everything... _This_ ,” he said, gesturing at his bloodied chest with both hands _(HELLO, GOODBYE)_ , “this all happened maybe half an hour before we got here. I told him, if something happened to me, he had to open the briefcase and bring it to my family, in the future, but I didn’t think he had _believed me_. Or that he would do it,” he continued, seemingly torn between appreciating the fact that his family would know what had happened to him and being sorry that – his lover? boyfriend? – Dave would be alone in a place so far from home. “Ben, I love him _so much_ , and I didn’t even get to say goodbye,” he admitted, choked up, and Ben felt a pang inside him, a feeling of grief so strong it almost made him feel alive. “How do I learn to watch him grieve when I’m still _right here_ ? How am I supposed to be at peace, or– or fucking _move on_ , when I can see that _he still needs me_?” he whispered, and the tears stuck in his eyes finally started falling as Klaus dissolved into helpless sobbing. 

Ben knew the answer to that, because he had been forced to look at his siblings cry at his funeral without being able to reach out to them and tell them that yes, he was dead, but he _wasn’t_ gone. The answer was that he had never learnt, he couldn’t have. It wasn’t possible. He had just gotten used to seeing others mourn and miss him while he looked at them, powerless to help. “I’m sorry,” he just said, and it felt inadequate even to him.

Klaus nodded in understanding, but his face seemed to fall even further, and he wiped his eyes (uselessly, since his body was stuck in the same condition he had died in – he could never stop crying, now). He crouched down next to the soldier, hands clenched into fists. “Dave,” he said. “ _Dave_ , love, I’m here,” he pleaded, voice soft and broken, a sad attempt at a smile on his face, blood dark on his pale skin, and Ben felt compelled to look away, but at the same time he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the quiet tragedy unfolding before him. 

The man didn’t hear him, obviously, and in a moment of courage (or desperation) Klaus finally reached out to Dave, and Ben watched as his tattooed, bloodied hands fell through the other man, insubstantial and weightless when interacting with the living (Ben could almost feel his brother’s pain – _he_ had felt that same pain himself, more than once).

A fraction of a second later, Klaus’s face crumbled, mouth opening to let out keening sound, like a wounded animal, and he flinched back so hard he unbalanced, falling to the pavement. “No, _please_ , _no_ ,” he murmured, only now grasping what being a ghost entailed. Being surrounded by the dead all his life had not prepared him enough for being one of them. Ben looked on, silent and unmoving, aware that he could do very little to help. 

Klaus soon got up again, shifting so that he was kneeling right in front of Dave, mirroring the other’s man position almost perfectly. Klaus’s hands were on his face to muffle his own sobs (used as he was to suffer in silence), spreading blood over his mouth, while Dave kept crying silently, hands clawed around the sides of the briefcase that had brought them together and torn them apart.

Ben stared at them, two soldiers out of time, and tried to understand.

**Author's Note:**

> ...should I continue this (as a separate fic), or...?


End file.
